The Scriptures are so rich in divine meaning that no one writer, no one meditation can ever do justice to their depth. That is certainly true of these famous passages. But common sense tells us that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. Grasping imperfectly part of the rich message of the Bible is a good thing for us humans to do. So here are some thoughts about these hard sayings.
The prestigious New Jerome Biblical Commentary comments on the ethic of non-resistance found in these words by pointing out that non-resistance is not the exclusively available Christian response in conflict. The commentator writes that the type of Christian response depends on the moral stage of one's enemy. If the enemy is the Gestapo, it is better not to give up the Jew hiding in the cellar. If the enemy is a segregationist Southern governor in the sixties or the indifference of American public opinion, then Martin Luther King, Jr., proved that civil disobedience can be powerfully effective. If the enemy is an expansionist Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan proved that standing one's ground with strength without mincing words can be devastatingly effective.
But even if the non-resistance described by Jesus is not meant to be the only option for Christians, such non-resistance is surely being taught as the epitome of the Christian response. We have heard these words so many times that many of us just ignore them. Most of us would probably be able to admit that we treat these words as so much rhetoric or exaggeration that paints a good but impossible ideal. Many of us just glaze over these famous words because we just don't know what to do with them.
But if we look closely and think about these words, they can stir us. In Matthew's version, Jesus calls us not to resist evildoers. As we have said, this command cannot apply to all evildoers of all kinds. The Church — the Body of Christ guided by the Holy Spirit — teaches that we have the right of self-defense. This right of self-defense taught by the Church cannot contradict any other part of divine revelation. But let's focus on the words “no resistance.” In certain situations, we are indeed not to resist. But not resisting does not mean doing nothing. It is not a command to do nothing.
In daily life, not resisting does not mean failing to announce the truth. “No resistance” does not mean “no truth.” In many situations, people approach us with hostility. In some cases, that hostility is nothing more than a cover for envy. The usual way to respond is with equal hostility and even vitriol. We then feel satisfied and proud that we have held our own and shown that we cannot be pushed around, that we are people to be reckoned with. But the gospel can mold our response in another direction. The conventional expectation is to hit back in the same way that we are hit. The powerful gospel alternative is to change the game, to refuse to play on the game board set before us by our enemies.
A powerful way to change the game of hostility is to state the truth. Not shouting the truth, not pushing the truth, but simply and calmly stating the truth about what our enemies have really said. And so our enemy is met, not with the same aggression that they have meted out, but instead with a challenge to think about what they are saying or doing. The goal of trying something different from conventional tit-for-tat is to transform the enemy. That transformation recognizes that the enemy is created in the image of God with a rational nature that is vulnerable to the truth. Saying the truth is fruitful. It never returns empty. It is the mustard seed that should never be underestimated.
So if we turn the other cheek in this way, we are showing our enemy all that we are. We are giving him the whole truth that we have. If we hand over the shirt off our back, we are giving all that we value — even all the truth that we have — to our enemy. If we go the extra mile with our enemy, we recognize that the enemy is a fellow human being who is really asking for help. We give him that help. Along with whatever else we give to the one who asks of us, we are giving him what he most needs: the truth we ourselves have received as a gift from God, even while we ourselves were still God's enemies.
In daily life, these hard sayings are powerful weapons to transform our enemies. It is foolish to skip these famous words. They offer us victory for all concerned in many common situations. Instead of humiliating the enemy, what Jesus recommends can transform the enemy. And, in some cases, we may even learn some transforming truth ourselves because of our enemies.
Oswald Sobrino’s daily columns can be found at the Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the internet at Virtualbookworm.com, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble.
